Hachishakusama (はっしゃくさま), A Record of the Woman Waiting Outside in a Family Member’s Voice

Hasshaku-sama.
In Japanese, 八尺様, usually read as はっしゃくさま.

Taken literally, the name means a being about eight shaku tall. In Japanese units, that’s roughly around 2.4 meters. She has the shape of a human, but is far too tall to be called a person. A white dress, a wide-brimmed hat, and the strange, clipped sound “po-po-po.” This is the image most people picture first when they think of Hasshaku-sama.

But it’s difficult to treat this image as an old folk tradition. Hasshaku-sama is more naturally understood as a modern internet ghost story that spread widely after a post on the 2ch occult board’s Sharekowai (“stories too scary to be jokes”) thread on August 26, 2008. Through reading videos, translations, games, illustrations, and derivative works, she solidified into something like a modern yokai.

So it’s hard to claim Hasshaku-sama is an “old rural monster passed down through generations.” Yet strangely, when you read the story, it feels old. That part bothered me a little.

The story begins in a countryside house. The narrator stays at his grandparents’ rural home during spring break before entering his third year of high school. The house has a yard, fields, and a living hedge. One day